Ecstasy “safe” but not on streets, B.C. health officer

Ecstasy can be safely taken in pure form by responsible adults, says British Columbia’s chief health officer, but the version of the drug that’s sold on the street is laced with dangerous impurities.

Dr. Perry Kendall, Public Health Officer for the Canadian province, suggested as a solution that ecstasy by licensed, regulated and sold to adults in government-regulated stores — as is proposed for marijuana.

Tainted ecstasy has been a killer on the streets of the Great White North.

A single batch of the drug, laced with impurities, killed 16 people from B.C. to Saskatchewan last year. Police estimate that 20 people die on the streets of British Columbia each year after ingesting “bad” ecstasy.

“Unless you are getting it from a psychiatrist in a legitimate clinical trial, at the present time, you can’t guarantee what’s in it, how much there is, or its safety, so I would say as we have said in the past — Don’t take it,” Kendall told CBC News.

In pure form, at a designated dose, the drug can be safely used, according to Kendall.

“If you knew what a safe dosage was, you might be able to buy ecstasy like you could buy alcohol from a government-regulated store,” he added. “We accept the fact that alcohol, which is certainly dangerous, is a product over a certain age that anybody can access.

“So I con’t think the issue is a technical one of how we would manage that. The issue is a political, perceptional one.”

Drug policy is under challenge in Canada, although the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues to take a hard line.

In moving from an enforcement to a treatment- and education-based policy, Vancouver has allowed a safe injection center to open on its downtown east side. Clean needles are provided to addicts, but also the opportunity to kick their addiction.

The Harper government tried to close the center, but it was successfully defended before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Several former Vancouver majors, former B.C. attorneys general, and two former British Columbia premiers have called for full decriminalization of marijuana, as a means of countering gangs that control its cultivation, sale and export.